The Temp
by curlycutie016
Summary: If I had to, I could clean out my desk in five seconds and nobody would ever know I had ever been here. And I'd forget too.
1. Pilot

The Temp

"Pilot"

It's his first day; he's nervous and hopes to make a good impression. It isn't his first job but every time he starts a new job even if it's scooping ice cream (like he did for two summers in high school) he's nervous. He thinks he's more nervous this time because it's a real job, its official, a grownup job in an office. He feels tired because he couldn't sleep well last night but the nervous adrenaline keeps him moving.

He goes into the office and walks to the receptionist desk. The girl working there is attractive but she looks tired and the florescent lights don't help. But then she looks up and smiles at him. When she smiles she's lighter and pretty.

"Hi can I help you?"

He walks closer to the desk, "Um yeah I'm Ryan Howard, the temp, I was told to come here…"

"Oh yeah I got the email, if you just wait a second…"

Then a whirlwind swoops at him in the human form of Michael Scott.

There's an employee meeting and he isn't sure if he should go in or since he's not official staff should he wait outside? Pam walks towards the conference room and smiles at him again, "You don't have to come in if you don't want to," then she grimaces when she hears the word downsizing murmured and adds, "actually I don't think you want to be in on this one."

He takes her advice and decides to give his mom a call.

Introductions are being made after the meeting, its normal until Dwight freaks out over his stapler being put in jell-o. He doesn't know what to make of this crazy situation when he hears a delighted muffled giggle and sees Pam hiding her smile behind her hand but her eyes laugh.

He notices how she's enjoying the exchange between Dwight and Jim that he can't help but add his own quip, "You should have put him in custard-y." Just then he was initiated with a shove from Michael, "Yes! New guy!"

He's survived the first day so far, towards the end of it Michael asks him to play along with a little fun, he agrees because he isn't stupid. He knows he should make a good impression with his boss and they should be friendly.

But he doesn't expect Michael to accuse Pam of stealing and then fire her. He sits there frozen; the thoughts that race through his mind are is this the joke? Is this for real? Why does he have to be here watching Pam's tired eyes fill with tears?

She bends her head and covers her eyes as she starts to cry, the room is silent except for her muffled sniffles. Then Michael gives the game up and says the stupidest thing, "He was in on it."

After Pam storms out of the room, part of him wants to get up and follow her and apologize and say that he wasn't in on it.

But he can't, because it's his first day, he's nervous and hopes to make a good impression.


	2. Diversity Day

The Temp

"Diversity Day"

When ever he thinks that a monotonous office routine is developing, something always interrupts it, usually in the form of Michael Scott.

This time the interruption is Diversity Day. Or at least that's what Michael announces before he can settle into going through his emails in the morning.

He attends this meeting because it's an official one put on by cooperate; normally he uses the excuse of manning the receptionist desk to get out of Michael's meetings. The meeting isn't going that bad, despite Michael's interrupting Mr. Brown's speech.

That is until Michael says they should go around the room and talk about what other races they are attracted to sexually. He's sitting to the right of where Michael is standing and he is begging any higher power to have mercy so he won't have to say anything.

Thankfully Mr. Brown takes control of the situation quickly and smoothly, despite Michael's Chris Rock impersonation and Dwight's confusion between a hero and superhero.

A phone rings and he really wishes he could leave the room with the pretext of having to do his job, but he wimps out until he gets a form then he bolts from the room as quickly and quietly as possible.

He gets out of the second meeting, which would probably be more painfully awkward than the first, by sitting at reception.

Pam has left her game of FreeCell up on the screen and he's tempted to finish it but then he notices how she's saving some of the cards and realizes she probably wants to watch them do that quick falling thing.

He won't admit it to anyone but he loves it when the cards do that, it's sort of entrancing and considering how things are in this office it could be the highlight of her day and he doesn't want to take that away from her.

He doesn't want to be a snoop but he figures she won't have anything really questionable on her office computer. He's right, there's nothing on her computer that indicates it's her computer. Even the desktop background is the Dunder Mifflin Logo and he's strangely upset by that. He hoped she would have a personal picture or at landscape of something nice to make her happy when she saw it when she started up her computer for another drudging day.

He figures he's going to have a lot of time to kill so he decides to download and watch the Chappelle's Show. He hopes Pam won't mind and that maybe it will give her a laugh because it seems she needs them.

He's about halfway through an episode when Jim comes over to talk to him. He wonders how was Jim able to escape Michael's strange diversity activity but before he can ask Jim's leaning over the desk asking, "What you watching?".

He figures Jim's cool and won't freak out that he's not doing office work, the way Dwight would, so he tells him, "Chappelle's Show."

Jim almost sounds surprised that he would know about something funny, "Really?"

He feels obligated to explain his actions, because it isn't his computer and it was sort of presumptuous to do it but he defends his actions by saying there was extra space on the computer.

Jim smiles and says it's ok and that he thinks Pam likes this stuff.

He's secretly pleased with himself and he hopes this is true because it would be nice to have someone to talk to about something besides asking questions about where extra printing paper is or can he borrow a stapler?

"She's cute, huh?" It was like an involuntary reflex question, one second he was thinking about how it would be nice to talk about Chappelle's Show with Pam and then he says that, but before he can continue Jim stops any thoughts about Pam, "you know she's engaged…"

He's always been a quick thinker, "Oh no, the girl in the…sketch."

Jim seems to be just as quick, "Oh yeah. She's hot."

They both agree and the moment passes.

When ever he thinks that a monotonous office routine is developing, something always interrupts it, like an engagement.


	3. Health Care

The Temp

"Health Care"

There are times when Ryan is more of an outsider than others, today is one of those days.

Since he isn't a full time employee the whole changing of the health care package doesn't really apply to him, so he just stays at his desk pulling staples out of pages that need to be filed while half listening to what is going on around him.

"There's no dental, there's no vision, there's a $1,200 deductible," he hears Stanley grouse. It sounds like a crap deal.

He sees Pam call to get Michael involved and randomly he thinks maybe he can do something because he's the unbiased outsider. But that thought quickly goes away when he sees Jim take action.

Ryan had seen Jim go into Michael's office then come out and talk to Dwight about picking the health care plan. It was obvious the task had been bummed off from Jim to Dwight so he couldn't figure out why Jim hadn't avoided this problem in the first place by just doing it himself?

Instead he gets to team up with Pam and hassle Dwight and solve a problem which he actually started in the first place.

Ryan looks back at the page he had been removing the staple from and notices he had yanked hard enough to rip the page almost in half.

When Michael announces that there will be a surprise at the end of the day, Ryan tries to catch himself from feeling any excitement because by now he should be used to the disappointment that accompanies any of Michael's plans.

Dwight makes everyone fill out a sheet with their health issues, except him. He sees that Pam is actually concentrating over her sheet and wonders what she could be writing, that is until Jim walks over and he hears "mad cow" being murmured and realizes that they're going to use this stupid task to mess with Dwight.

He could think of some pretty messed up stuff, if he had been given a sheet. Or maybe he would have been honest and written down asthma.

It's almost the end of the day and Jim has locked Dwight into his workspace/office? Ryan decides to do his photocopying so he won't have to do it Monday and so he can be closer to the action. Unfortunately this is when Michael finally makes it back to the office and starts throwing ice cream sandwiches at people.

"Oh, hey temp. Why don't you take two? Because you don't get health care. And uh, faster metabolism." Michael hands him two and Ryan knows he should smile and say thank you but he's been here for over two weeks, Michael knows his name but he still calls him temp. If he was asked about it later he would say he was provoked.

Ryan can't stop himself from asking "Did you get the kind with the cookies? Instead of the..."

"Why don't you just eat it, okay?" Michael snaps and moves on.

Ryan stands there wondering if he could make it back to his desk without being noticed but he's scared that any sudden movement would get Michael's attention back on him so he waits and restacks his papers.

He looks at the clock, the day is almost done. Maybe he can sneak out of the office early; it isn't like anyone would notice that he was gone.

But before he can make it out of the office everyone is gathered around Michael asking about the surprise and he's stuck on the side of the group furthest from the door.

Kevin is the first to leave and Ryan looks to see if anyone else is going to as well. He's actually curious to see if Pam will leave because despite her goofing around with Jim, she has a good rapport with Michael, at least when he's not fake firing her.

He almost wants to wait for her to go first but then he remembers he's meeting some friends to go out for a end of the week drink so he leaves, it's not like if he stays it would matter.

After all there are times when Ryan is more of an outsider than others, today is one of those days.


End file.
